Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718)
Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718)
A raw, immediate account of one man's descent into war. The narrator is barely seventeen, a university student in Aberdeen, when he hears the call of the Highlands and sells his books to buy a sword. The Battle of Gillycranky (1689) consumes his youth, and from there he embarks on nearly thirty years of military service across Scotland, Germany, Italy, Flanders, and Ireland. What unfolds is not merely a chronicle of campaigns, but a private meditation on loyalty, ambition, and the terrible mathematics of political allegiance. He serves through the collapsed Jacobite cause, watches King James II fail to reclaim his throne with French backing, and reflects on the mentors who taught him both strategy and betrayal. Interspersed are amorous entanglements and familial duties that complicate the soldier's path. The voice is vivid and unvarnished, capturing the texture of early 18th-century warfare while offering something rarer: a candid look at what it costs to fight for causes that may already be lost.
